Civ4 does not load config file when windows user name has Non-wetern characters

[阿里巴巴]

for example, C:\Documents and Settings\阿里巴巴\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CivilizationIV.ini
I can see the file timestamp changed when I change settings.
But it just does not load it at next start. All my changes lost.
has this bug been reported already?
Ignore this post if it has.

 

[Inu-Yasha]

Cannot confirm, I had no problems while using a user name of "犬夜叉", civ had no problems starting (after changing to windowed mode, it started in a windows (running with codepage for non-unicode apps set to Japanese).

But Civ4 does have problems with characters not representable with the current codepage in the user name.
When I created a user with the name "&#20320;&#22909;&#21527;" (I know, not very creative, but I don't know much chinese Civ4 came up with several error messages "Could not write to diplomatic cache" etc and after starting a game "could not save game to "C:\Documents and Settings\<somegarbage>\My documents\My Games\(etc)". Manually saving a game in the my documents folder didn't work either.
Naturally, civ4 didn't remember any options (and there weren't any directories or files created neither in application data nor in my documents\my games).

Another interesting thing, when i used a username of "Inüyasha" (while ("Inuyasha" is my normal login) Civ4 didnt even start up.
Most probably the path was converted from unicode to sjis, and in ascii there is no "ü", so the next maching replacement is a "u".
So Civ4 tried to access C:\Documents and Setting\Inuyasha" which belongs to a different user and Civ had naturally no rights to access anything.

Till this date I have yet to see one game which is able to use unicode paths (perhaps the newer microsoft games can, but I haven't bought one for several years).
happy holidays,
Inuyasha

OT:
IMO Microsoft should have made being fully unicode-compliant (at least on filename basis) mandatory for applications getting the "Designed for XP"-logo (and should make it for "Designed for Vista", but most probably we will still get applications like Acrobat Reader 7, which refuses to run under anything 9x, but still is ignorant about unicode paths).

Totally OT:

&#19975;&#37324;&#38271;&#22478;&#27704;&#19981;&#20498;

Does this mean somthing along the line "ten thousand li long fortress, eternally unbeaten"? Just guessing from my japanese.

 

[阿里巴巴]

Inu-Yasha, thanks for your investigation.
Actually I can start Civ4 without any error. It just uses defaut settings like there is no config file for it.
When I modified config and exit to desktop, I checked the CivilizationIV.ini, it does be modified.
Another similar problem in autosaving. It can save but can not load autosaved game without prompting any error. I moved the autosaved file to another all-English character directory, it loaded without problem.
I created an English user account and I can play Civ4 perfectly using that user.

 

[阿里巴巴]

It means "The ten thousand li long Great Wall will never fall down".

Totally OT:

Does this mean somthing along the line "ten thousand li long fortress, eternally unbeaten"? Just guessing from my japanese.

 

[阿里巴巴]

duplicated reply. Ignore this....

 

[Inu-Yasha]

Okay, I investigated again, this time using your username and setting my codepage to "&#20013;&#22269;&#35486;(&#20013;&#22269" (should be yours as you are using simplified characters).
And i noticed: I checked the wrong setting, fullscreen or not is stored in the .ini-file, and is remembered (your civ4 should also remember this option), but "single unit graphics" was not, and this option is stored in "Application Data\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Profiles\Default Profile.pfl".

so, Filemon to the rescue, und lo and behold, civ4 thought you aged a bit:
Civ4 tried to access some directories at "C:\Documents and Settings\&#38463;&#32769;&#24052;&#24052;\Application Data\My Games\..." and naturally not finding them, therefor never loading the profile (desplite being written correctly).

I tried my "&#29356;&#22812;&#21449;" again, and this time Civ4 (dependent on the Directory) changed it to "&#65428;&#65378;&#22812;&#21449;" or "&#29356;&#32236;&#21449;".

Looking at the Sjis-codes for "&#22812;" and "&#32236;" which are "CCEB" and "CCCB", or parsed as Latin1 "Lk" and "LK", it seems Civ4 is uppercasing the path and any character which is unfortunate to contain the bytecode for a lowercase ascii-character gets changed.

This is a bug which Firexis definately has to fix if they plan to release Civ4 in East-Asia (and other countries using so many characters in their script that they need a multibyte character script).

So if you want to avoid it for the present, just use a name without such characters ("&#38463;&#32769;&#24052;&#24052;" isn't that bad ).

P.S:
Just looked at "&#37324;" vs "&#32769;"; parsed as Latin1 these are "Àï" and "ÀÏ", so clearly the same case.

 

[Oren_m]

Hey,
My windows user name is also a none-western one (Hebrew)
and i have the same problem, my settings are not saved or not being loaded.